Magic Steps

Lark smoothed her hair with a gentle hand. “I would have given anything to spare you that.”

Saedry hugged her teacher. “I know.”

She finished her cake and her tea, went to the privy, then washed her hands and face in a bucket of water. When she next entered the empty dining room, the musicians stood in the door that led to the front of the house. Pasco waited in a corner. Other council mages came to watch: Crane, Winding Circle’s Dedicate Superior, Moonstream, the Duke’s healer, Comfrey, and Skyfire, who was the head of the Fire temple, and a handful of others. Sandry knew the plan was that these mages would be outside the house, concealed within spells, standing guard.

When Pasco finished the net dance, they would sprinkle the lines of ash across the ways into the house. There was a chance the Dihanurs might leave footprints.

If they did, the watchers could give Sandry some warning of the killers approach.

The Guildhall clock struck two. Up at Duke’s Citadel the play they were staging for the Dihanurs was just starting. It was Skyfire, a one-time general, who had devised this part of the plan with the help of the duke and Erdogun. They had no way to know where the assassins were they might be in the duke’s residence, trying to get at the Inner keep once more, in the outer bailey of the Citadel, or somewhere between the Citadel and the waterfront. With that in mind, everyone had to act as if their quarry could see them at any moment, from the time Durshan Rokat walked out of the inner keep and demanded to go home. The handful of people who were to create the charade and keep it going had orders to make as much noise and fuss as possible. That way, even if the killers were not watching they would hear Citadel Guard or city gossip about the crazy old man who turned down, the duke’s hospitality.

Durshan Rokat would be walking out of the inner keep now. It was time for Sandry and Pasco to add the power of their net to the killers’ discovery that one Rokat was available to be murdered.

“Have we soldiers to arrest the Dihanurs?” Sandry asked Lark as she opened the ebony box where the net was kept.

“In the cellar and upstairs,” Lark replied.

Sandry looked down into the box. Her shadowy creation was invisible against the black wood, but she could feel it there. Tying and knotting the net, she had become attuned to unmagic. It was stronger now, the knots in creasing its power as it fed back on itself.

Her skin ringing with fear, she gathered her net in her arms. She had left bits of her own power like yarn ties at the corners so she could find them. Taking the first corner, she placed it on the north point on the pattern, over a round socket in the floor. Lark knelt and fitted an ebony peg into the socket to anchor that corner of the net. Sandry then went to the eastern point of the tile pattern and set another corner of the net there; Crane anchored it with an elderwood peg. South came next; Dedicate Skyfire anchored the unmagic with an oak peg. Last was the west corner; Sandry nodded her thanks to Healer Comfrey, who placed a hawthorn peg to hold the net.

Now Sandry moved back from her creation, trying to ignore the dark film that lay over her clothes. Everything she had worn or used for this working would be burned when this was over. In her vision the dark cords of the unmagic net were stark against the red and white tiles of the floor pattern. Best of all, they matched it perfectly.

“Pasco,” she whispered.

As he walked in, Dedicate Skyfire stopped him and pressed a leather pouch into his hand.

“Once you complete the center square,” Lark said, pointing, “drop that in the middle, understand?”

Pasco opened the pouch. Moonstream said, “Don’t,” and Skyfire barked, “Careful with that, boy,” as he peeked inside.

Pasco glanced at them, then lowered his nose close to the mouth of the pouch and gave the tiniest of sniffs. When he looked up, he surveyed everyone with eyes that were huge with reproach. “This is dragonsalt.”

“That it is,” replied Skyfire crisply.

“It’s illegal,” the boy persisted. “Having it gets you ten years in the granite quarries up north.”

Skyfire uttered a bark of laughter. “Nonsense, young Acalon—no one survives ten years in the quarries.”

Pasco stared at the tall dedicate, his mouth stubborn. “Setting it gets your guts ripped out on Penitence Hill.”

Sandry put her hands on her hips. “We know it’s bad, Pasco,” she said quietly “It’s how their mage has done so much damage without his unmagie eating him alive. It’s bait, all right? Otherwise he’ll see the net and never step onto it.

We’ll have the other two and not him.”

Pasco nodded and closed the pouch, tucking it into his pocket. He came to stand at the north corner of the net. As the musicians played the opening of the dance tune, Sandry heard him, whisper, “Come to me, rats!”

When Pasco heard his cue, he jumped lightly into the center of the first net square. He danced beautifully, his toes flicking one. way and another, pointing to each corner. Then, he was on to the next square, and the next.

Sandry watched, and sweated, terrified he would miss a step and. brash the nothingness. Soon she realized there could as well have been, yards of space between his feet and those invisible cords for all the closer he came to them.

Yazinin had given him movements for his arms and. torso that seemed to add to his magic. With, each change of position, the silver fire left in his wake grew brighter.

Sandry’s other fear, that leaving the dragonsalt pouch in the center square might throw the boy off, was soon banished. She didn’t even see him reach for it, but as he jumped to the next square, the pouch slid from his hand. It struck the midpoint of the center square with a soft thump.